Charity

“We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.” Pope Francis

The school has a long tradition of raising money and awareness for local, national and international charities. Each year group chooses a particular charity to focus on throughout the year, with students raising substantial amounts of money through various activities including sponsored events, sporting fixtures, car washes, tuck shops and cake sales. Year groups are given particular weeks in addition to lent – where the majority of our fundraising takes place - to focus their attention to raising money and awareness with guest speakers in assemblies, and tutorial time spent on learning about their particular charity. This year each pastoral group is championing the work of the following charities:

The school community also raises large amounts of money for CAFOD during the school year through our hunger lunches, and at times of crisis such as when typhoon Hayain hit the Philippians in 2013 and more recently pupils and staff raised money for CAFOD’s response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Throughout the school year the Justice and Peace group work to raise money and awareness for various groups. They run a weekly Fairtrade shop, hold weekly meetings and have been chosen by CAFOD to be a link school in 2015 – leading the new CAFOD campaign on climate change. Recently alongside Sixth Form General RE classes, they were able to send a number of hope cards to unlawfully held prisoners around the world as part of Amnesty’s “write for rights” campaign.

In addition to all of this, many pupils raise money for the charities we support outside of school time. Last year a member of our sixth form completed a skydive for the North London Hospice; another group were the winners of the Youth Philanthropy Imitative and were awarded £3000 for the butterfly AVM charity based in Enfield.

The school's total fundraising over the course of the year often runs into the many thousands, and is an integral part of the school life, embracing the school’s message “where everybody matters”